PLAN­NING

Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan

POLICY I — NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT

Non-stat­utory Plan­ning Guidance

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy I — New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-stat­utory Plan­ning Guidance

This non-stat­utory Plan­ning Guid­ance provides fur­ther inform­a­tion and detail on how to com­ply with Policy I – New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

This doc­u­ment is avail­able in large print on request. Please con­tact the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity on 01479 873535. It is also avail­able to view at www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk

Pub­lished by Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own-on-Spey PH26 3HG

Email: planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk Tel: 01479 873535 Fax: 01479 873527

www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk

© CNPA 2015. All rights reserved.

Policy I New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Guidance

Policy Require­ments	Inform­a­tion Required
Hous­ing devel­op­ment in settlements	• Select a site with­in an iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment boundary
	• A state­ment con­firm­ing that the design makes best use of the selec­ted site
Hous­ing devel­op­ment in exist­ing rur­al groups	• Con­firm the num­ber of build­ings that make up the group
	• Ensure a design which enhances and rein­forces the char­ac­ter of the exist­ing group
Oth­er hous­ing in the countryside	• Details of the oper­a­tion­al and viab­il­ity needs of the busi­ness which jus­ti­fy a new house
	• Jus­ti­fy the need to loc­ate the house on the selec­ted site
100% afford­able housing	• Provide inform­a­tion demon­strat­ing the need and loc­a­tion for the development
Afford­able hous­ing provided using cross subsidy	• Provide inform­a­tion to demon­strate the need and loc­a­tion for the development
	• Provide fin­an­cial inform­a­tion to sup­port the amount of open mar­ket units proposed
Alter­a­tions to exist­ing houses (any location)	• Ensure the design pro­tects the char­ac­ter of the exist­ing house and its setting
	• Retain garden space appro­pri­ate to the size of the exten­ded property
	• Retain access and park­ing pro­vi­sion appro­pri­ate to the size of the exten­ded property
Con­ver­sions	• Provide a struc­tur­al sur­vey show­ing that the pro­posed works can be fit­ted into the exist­ing prop­erty without the need for demolition
	• Ensure the design com­ple­ments the ori­gin­al in terms of style and character
Replace­ment houses	• Provide a struc­tur­al sur­vey con­firm­ing the exist­ing house is unsound and incap­able of rehab­il­it­a­tion; or is of non-stand­ard construction
	• Jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the selec­ted site if not includ­ing the ori­gin­al footprint
Hous­ing for gypsies and trav­el­lers and trav­el­ling showpeople	• Demon­strate the need iden­ti­fied based on the rel­ev­ant hous­ing strategy
	• Jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the selec­ted site con­sid­er­ing the impact on neigh­bour­ing land uses

Meet­ing the require­ments of the policy

1. Most large scale hous­ing devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should be loc­ated on alloc­ated sites or with­in stra­tegic set­tle­ments as iden­ti­fied in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. Hous­ing pro­pos­als on oth­er wind­fall sites will also be con­sidered. These are gen­er­ally smal­ler sites which provide good oppor­tun­it­ies for single or smal­ler scale hous­ing devel­op­ments. Exist­ing houses may also be exten­ded or altered to cre­ate the liv­ing space required by the occupant.

Hous­ing in settlements

1. Your devel­op­ment must be loc­ated with­in the set­tle­ment bound­ary as set out in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. It must be designed to ensure the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment is rein­forced, mak­ing best use of the land available.

Hous­ing devel­op­ment in exist­ing rur­al groups

1. You must be sure that the site is with­in a defined rur­al build­ing group. The group must include three or more build­ings, one of which must be an exist­ing house. Ancil­lary build­ings to the exist­ing house are not included in this cal­cu­la­tion. These include ken­nels, out­build­ings, gar­ages and sheds.
2. Each build­ing group has its own indi­vidu­al iden­tity. Where both nat­ur­al and man-made bound­ar­ies exist, nat­ur­al bound­ar­ies take pre­ced­ence over man-made bound­ar­ies when defin­ing the extent of a build­ing group. You should ensure that your devel­op­ment fits with the group and adds to the cohes­ive pat­tern of built form with­in its land­scape set­ting. Your devel­op­ment must not extend the exist­ing group by expand­ing into pre­vi­ously undeveloped fields; par­tic­u­larly where a defin­able nat­ur­al bound­ary exists between the field and the exist­ing group.
3. Where a group con­sists of a row of houses front­ing a road, infill or addi­tions using gaps of an appro­pri­ate size may provide oppor­tun­it­ies for new dwell­ings. In such cases, new houses should be of a scale appro­pri­ate to the oth­ers in the locality.
4. Your applic­a­tion must include a descrip­tion of the group which you are adding to, detail­ing the num­ber of build­ings in the group and an explan­a­tion of how your devel­op­ment adds to the rela­tion­ship between the build­ings. You must not extend the bound­ar­ies of the group past any exist­ing defens­ible bound­ary or feature.
5. New devel­op­ment must not cause a group to increase in size by more than one third dur­ing the Plan peri­od. This includes extant per­mis­sions which are yet to be completed.

Oth­er hous­ing in the countryside

1. If your devel­op­ment pro­pos­al is loc­ated out­with a set­tle­ment bound­ary, and is not with­in a rur­al build­ing group then you must con­sider: • why the pro­pos­al is neces­sary for, or improves, the oper­a­tion­al and eco­nom­ic viab­il­ity of an act­ive busi­ness. This busi­ness must demon­strate a val­id loc­a­tion­al need to be in the coun­tryside. This includes land man­age­ment oper­a­tions, and tour­ism and recre­ation pur­suits; or • wheth­er the site is on rur­al brown­field land; and • how it con­serves the exist­ing pat­tern of devel­op­ment. It should not erode the set­tle­ment hier­archy, and should not cre­ate a new form of devel­op­ment in the land­scape which is at odds with exist­ing built and land­scape character.
2. You must include inform­a­tion to sup­port the need for the house in the chosen location.
3. The con­tri­bu­tion the house makes to the busi­ness it is to sup­port will be con­sidered by the plan­ning author­ity. This can be either a new busi­ness ven­ture or an exist­ing one. How­ever, you must be clear in the inform­a­tion provided that the busi­ness will rely on the house to ensure its eco­nom­ic suc­cess. In the case of a new busi­ness, it is required that the busi­ness ele­ment of the pro­pos­al is in place pri­or to the con­struc­tion and com­ple­tion of the house.
4. In the design of the devel­op­ment you must show how your pro­pos­al helps con­serve the exist­ing built form in the area. You should not pro­pose a devel­op­ment which is at odds to the exist­ing built form. You should also ensure that the set­tle­ment hier­archy is not eroded. This includes adequate con­sid­er­a­tion of altern­at­ive loc­a­tions for your devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly where there is an exist­ing build­ing group in close prox­im­ity to your pro­posed devel­op­ment site.

Con­tri­bu­tions towards afford­able hous­ing provision

1. All res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment must make a con­tri­bu­tion towards afford­able hous­ing provision.
2. In the case of applic­a­tions for Plan­ning Per­mis­sion in Prin­ciple where the final­ised lay­out and con­tent of a devel­op­ment pro­pos­al may not be known, then a rate for the site, nor­mally on a rate per house unit, based on its loc­a­tion will be used. This will form the basis of a Plan­ning Oblig­a­tion, so that the plan­ning applic­a­tion may be determ­ined and a decision notice issued fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of that oblig­a­tion. All applic­a­tions for full plan­ning per­mis­sion for hous­ing devel­op­ment must be accom­pan­ied by details of the num­ber of afford­able units, and details of who will provide the afford­able hous­ing units – wheth­er this is a private developer, registered social land­lord or oth­er party.

3. If a developer knows that the site on which they are seek­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion is included in either a Coun­cil or Registered Social Land­lord invest­ment pro­gramme, evid­ence of this must be sub­mit­ted with the plan­ning application.

4. If sig­ni­fic­ant extraordin­ary devel­op­ment costs occur at a later stage which could not have been known at the start of the devel­op­ment, a prag­mat­ic approach will be taken to the pay­ment of con­tri­bu­tions. Sup­port­ing evid­ence will be required.

5. Devel­op­ments of four or more dwell­ings will be expec­ted to provide a bench­mark of 25 per cent afford­able units with­in the devel­op­ment. How­ever, if it can be demon­strated that an off­s­ite con­tri­bu­tion would bet­ter meet a community’s hous­ing needs, then an altern­at­ive solu­tion will be nego­ti­ated with the developer. This may include a cash pay­ment towards the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing at anoth­er location.
6. Where pro­pos­als are made for the devel­op­ment of less than four open mar­ket dwell­ings, a fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion will be sought that will be put towards the deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing in anoth­er loc­a­tion. This fin­ance will be ring-fenced for the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing. The con­tri­bu­tion will be put towards the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing in the rel­ev­ant sec­ond­ary school catch­ment area or hous­ing mar­ket area if appro­pri­ate. In the first instance, this will be sought in the same settlement.
7. The value of the fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion will be spe­cific­ally related to the value of the site being developed. The guide for this fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion is £25,000 per unit for devel­op­ments of four houses or more. This may how­ever vary due to the loc­a­tion and value (high­er value sites requir­ing high­er con­tri­bu­tions) of the devel­op­ment, or the spe­cif­ics of the site.
8. Where a devel­op­ment is of less than four houses, it is not reas­on­able to expect such a large con­tri­bu­tion to be made. There­fore, a per­cent­age of the £25,000 bench­mark will be paid. In these cases the fol­low­ing will act as a guide: One house 5% of the £25,000 bench­mark = £1,250 Two houses 10% of the £25,000 bench­mark = £2,500 Three houses 15% of the £25,000 bench­mark = £3,750
9. Where assess­ments demon­strate that the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing is more suited on a dif­fer­ent site, this will be con­sidered. A pro­pos­al that incor­por­ates an ele­ment of off­s­ite pro­vi­sion of the afford­able hous­ing will only be gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion when details of meth­ods of deliv­ery have been agreed. The devel­op­ment of both sites will be sub­ject to a leg­al agree­ment to ensure that the afford­able hous­ing ele­ment of the devel­op­ment is built with­in an agreed timeframe.

Afford­able hous­ing developments

1. All 100 per cent afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ments will be sup­por­ted where they meet an iden­ti­fied loc­al need. Applic­ants and those eli­gible for any form of afford­able hous­ing must be taken or nom­in­ated from the hous­ing wait­ing lists of the loc­al hous­ing author­ity, hous­ing asso­ci­ations or from anoth­er organ­isa­tion with an alloc­a­tions policy appro­pri­ate to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.
2. Devel­op­ments must meet an iden­ti­fied need with­in the loc­al com­munity. This need will be shown through loc­al assess­ments, form­al inform­a­tion from the loc­al hous­ing author­ity, or by any oth­er robust inform­a­tion avail­able. Afford­able hous­ing is broadly defined as hous­ing at a reas­on­able qual­ity that is afford­able to people on mod­est incomes.
3. Inde­pend­ent assess­ments will be made of the required inform­a­tion to ensure the afford­able devel­op­ment is required by the applic­ant, is of an appro­pri­ate size, and is in a loc­a­tion which is jus­ti­fi­able. You must provide the neces­sary inform­a­tion to allow an inde­pend­ent assessor to carry out an assess­ment in a timely way which does not delay the pro­cess of determ­in­ing the applic­a­tion. This includes: • details to con­firm the res­id­ents of the new devel­op­ment are in hous­ing need. You may be asked for detailed fin­an­cial inform­a­tion. This inform­a­tion will be con­sidered in con­fid­ence by the inde­pend­ent assessors and will not be passed to the plan­ning author­ity; • details to con­firm the res­id­ents of the new devel­op­ment have a need to live in the loc­al­ity chosen; • how the devel­op­ment is meet­ing a recog­nised need for afford­able hous­ing in the area; • explan­a­tion of why exist­ing prop­er­ties or sites which are for sale on the open mar­ket do not meet the need iden­ti­fied. Per­son­al pref­er­ence is not con­sidered to be a val­id mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion; • floor plan details to allow com­par­is­on with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment bench­marks on house size stand­ards; • com­par­is­on costs to jus­ti­fy the afford­ab­il­ity of the new devel­op­ment against the cost of exist­ing hous­ing stock; • inform­a­tion from the rel­ev­ant authority/​Registered Social Land­lord to con­firm the devel­op­ment will res­ult in a reduc­tion in their wait­ing list.

Afford­able hous­ing provided using cross sub­sidy from oth­er housing

1. Afford­able hous­ing which includes an open mar­ket ele­ment will also be sup­por­ted. This open mar­ket ele­ment can provide an import­ant sub­sidy to secur­ing the afford­able ele­ment. As with pro­pos­als for 100 per cent afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ment, inde­pend­ent assessors will be used to carry out an assess­ment to ensure the afford­able ele­ment of the devel­op­ment is of appro­pri­ate size, and is in a loc­a­tion which is jus­ti­fi­able. You must provide the neces­sary inform­a­tion to allow an inde­pend­ent assessor to carry out an assess­ment in a timely way which does not delay the pro­cess of determ­in­ing the plan­ning application.
2. You should ini­tially seek pub­lic fund­ing to meet the bur­den of devel­op­ment costs. In the event that this is not avail­able you may then con­sider includ­ing an ele­ment of open mar­ket devel­op­ment to sub­sid­ise the afford­able ele­ment of the development.
3. Evid­ence that any open mar­ket ele­ment is the min­im­um required to fund the afford­able ele­ment will need to be sub­mit­ted. All afford­able houses must meet a loc­al need. Your applic­a­tion must include: • inform­a­tion to jus­ti­fy the need for all afford­able hous­ing. Refer to the loc­al hous­ing author­ity to gath­er most up to date inform­a­tion. Any oth­er com­munity based stud­ies may also be con­sidered; • where you include an open mar­ket ele­ment, inform­a­tion to demon­strate that pub­lic fund­ing or oth­er forms of fin­ance are not avail­able; • inform­a­tion to demon­strate that the open mar­ket ele­ment is the min­im­um required to close the fund­ing gap. This should include inform­a­tion on the costs of land pur­chase and con­struc­tion of the afford­able ele­ment. It should not include the cost of the land nor any part of the con­struc­tion of the open mar­ket ele­ment; • a design which is cohes­ive and cre­ates a new or adds to an exist­ing group of build­ings. There should be no dis­cern­ible dif­fer­ence in the appear­ance of the afford­able and open mar­ket elements.

Alter­a­tions to exist­ing houses

1. When design­ing an alter­a­tion or exten­sion to an exist­ing build­ing par­tic­u­lar care should be giv­en to ensur­ing that the pro­posed alter­a­tion com­ple­ments the appear­ance and char­ac­ter of the exist­ing build­ing and its sur­round­ing area. This means that you must con­sider the mass­ing, pro­por­tions, mater­i­als and gen­er­al visu­al appear­ance of the exist­ing build­ing, its neigh­bours and the wider area. You must ensure that the pro­posed alter­a­tion does not have a sig­ni­fic­ant and unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al effect on the res­id­en­tial amen­ity enjoyed by adjoin­ing house­hold­ers. This means con­sid­er­ing where win­dows are placed and how levels of day­light will be exper­i­enced through­out daily and annu­al cycles. You must also ensure that adequate out­side space is main­tained for private garden ground, park­ing and access to the property.

Con­ver­sions

1. Con­ver­sion of non-domest­ic build­ings into hous­ing not only brings build­ings back to life but it also provides oppor­tun­it­ies to con­serve our built her­it­age and help to main­tain the char­ac­ter and dis­tinct­ive­ness of places with­in the Nation­al Park.
2. The con­ver­sion and renov­a­tion of the build­ings must be as faith­ful as pos­sible to the exist­ing scale, char­ac­ter and mater­i­als. Addi­tions and alter­a­tions should gen­er­ally be lim­ited to those neces­sary to achieve Build­ing Stand­ards, the effi­cient use of space and an appro­pri­ate and coher­ent design concept.
3. You must con­sider how you will achieve adequate private garden space for the pro­posed domest­ic use of the con­ver­ted build­ing. Where the land­scape set­ting is appro­pri­ate, and estab­lished bound­ar­ies such as walls and hedgerows relate well to the site, you may need to con­sider adja­cent and inter­ven­ing land for ancil­lary pur­poses, par­tic­u­larly to achieve adequate private garden space.
4. Where exist­ing agri­cul­tur­al build­ings are being con­ver­ted away from agri­cul­tur­al use, you must provide inform­a­tion on any con­sequent need and pro­pos­als for sit­ing new agri­cul­tur­al build­ings to replace those which are redund­ant. Such build­ings should not con­flict with the res­id­en­tial use of the redund­ant build­ings. If exist­ing agri­cul­tur­al uses are to be retained in build­ings close to the pro­posed res­id­en­tial uses, you will need to demon­strate that con­flict or nuis­ance will not occur.
5. Con­ver­sion of tra­di­tion­al and ver­nacu­lar build­ings will be con­sidered appro­pri­ate where the build­ing is no longer required for its ori­gin­al use, and is unlikely to have a com­mer­cial or eco­nom­ic future in its cur­rent form. You must set out the case for this in your plan­ning sub­mis­sion. Your con­ver­sion pro­pos­al should be designed to main­tain the style and char­ac­ter of the ori­gin­al build­ing in terms of form, scale, mater­i­als and detail­ing, where they con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the con­text and set­ting of the area. This means that the build­ing, its set­ting and ori­gin­al design details must be care­fully con­sidered to ensure that the con­ver­ted build­ing remains in har­mony with its setting.
6. You will need to demon­strate that: • the build­ing is no longer required for its ori­gin­al use, and that it is unlikely to have a com­mer­cial or eco­nom­ic future in its cur­rent form; and • the devel­op­ment pro­pos­al main­tains the ori­gin­al char­ac­ter of the building.

Replace­ment houses

1. Before a pro­pos­al for a replace­ment dwell­ing is con­sidered, you will be required to invest­ig­ate the feas­ib­il­ity of re-using or renov­at­ing the exist­ing dwell­ing. Only once this has been shown to be unfeas­ible will a pro­pos­al for the demoli­tion of an exist­ing build­ing and the con­struc­tion of a replace­ment dwell­ing be con­sidered. In the case of sur­viv­ing tra­di­tion­al ruins, these should be used to form the basis of a renov­a­tion pro­ject appro­pri­ate to the set­ting, rather than con­sid­er­ing their com­plete replacement.

2. The replace­ment house should be sim­il­ar in scale to that which it replaces and the set­ting of the new house should be sim­il­ar to that of the exist­ing house in terms of ori­ent­a­tion and dis­tance from road unless indi­vidu­al site con­di­tions sug­gest that anoth­er pos­i­tion (with­in the site bound­ar­ies) would cre­ate a bet­ter land­scape fit.

3. If the pro­posed new house does not occupy the foot­print of the pre­vi­ous house, that foot­print will not be accep­ted as a site for a future house- build­ing proposal.
4. Your pro­pos­al will need to demon­strate that the exist­ing house is loc­ated with­in an estab­lished site with a good land­scape set­ting and land­scape fit; has site bound­ar­ies cap­able of provid­ing a suit­able enclos­ure for a new house; and is in oth­er respects accept­able in plan­ning terms.
5. Your devel­op­ment must: • ensure that the ori­gin­al build­ing is not a lis­ted build­ing; • demon­strate that the ori­gin­al is incap­able of rehab­il­it­a­tion, being demon­strably unsound struc­tur­ally or is of a non stand­ard form of con­struc­tion. This will usu­ally be in the form of a qual­i­fied struc­tur­al engin­eers report and fin­an­cial apprais­al; • be designed in such a way that the new devel­op­ment incor­por­ates the ori­gin­al foot­print of the build­ing to be removed. The only excep­tion to this is where an • altern­at­ive loc­a­tion close to the ori­gin­al would min­im­ise any neg­at­ive effects which exist or would res­ult from the new devel­op­ment. If the pro­posed new house does not occupy the foot­print of the pre­vi­ous house, that foot­print will not be accep­ted as a site for a future house build­ing pro­pos­al; • incor­por­ate exist­ing build­ings and/​or mater­i­als where pos­sible. If such mater­i­als are not to be incor­por­ated into the pro­posed dwell­ing then you must demon­strate (again through a qual­i­fied struc­tur­al engin­eers report) why these mater­i­als can­not be salvaged and re-used on-site.

Hous­ing for gypsies and trav­el­lers and trav­el­ling showpeople

1. If your devel­op­ment is for hous­ing spe­cific­ally to meet the needs of gypsies and trav­el­lers and trav­el­ling showpeople you should con­sider site selec­tion care­fully. You must also demon­strate that the devel­op­ment is needed, and has been iden­ti­fied as such by the loc­al hous­ing authority.
2. In design­ing the devel­op­ment you should con­sider the impact on neigh­bours, and the needs of the res­id­ents, both in terms of access and amen­ity. Screen­ing may be required depend­ing on the nature of the site.
3. In your applic­a­tion you must include: • inform­a­tion on the need for the devel­op­ment; • clear jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the site selec­tion which matches the iden­ti­fied need.